Mamata works out formula for Bengal assembly by-elections

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee seems to have worked out a seat sharing formula formula with the help of the Congress in the 10 Assembly seats in Bengal where by-elections will be held on November 7.

The Assembly seats fell vacant when the incumbents were elected to the Lok Sabha in May.

Trinamool sources told Hindustan Times that Mamata got in touch with Union Finance Minister and Bengal PCC president Pranab Mukherjee and other All India Congress Committee leaders in Delhi and agreed to contest only seven seats.

She has agreed to leave the other three to the Congress.

Mamata has reportedly agreed to spare the seats in north Bengal namely Sujapur in Malda district, Goalpokhar in North Dinajpur and Kalchini in Jalpaiguri to the Congress.

The seven seats she wants to keep for Trinamool are in south Bengal, a stronghold for her party.

However, most of the Trinamool leaders were completely in the dark till Friday night.

“We have not received any official communique but if this is the formula then we welcome it. We hope there will be no more attempt to show the Congress in poor light”, PCC working president Pradip Bhattacharya, 65, told HT.

The Bengal pradesh election committee would meet on Saturday to discuss the issue.

Two o the seats Mamata has ceded to the Congress, was already held by them.

In the 2006 Assembly polls Deepa Dasmunsi, wife of Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi had won from Goalpokhar. In 2008, Sujapur was won by Mausam Nur, niece of ABA Gani Khan Chaudhury, after her mother Ruby Nur passed away.

The Left had won Kalchini.

It appears Mamata has put the bitterness with the Congress over the fight for mayor’s post in Siliguri Municipal Elections behind her to work out a quiet deal.